Another cog in the culture industry

May 18, 2015

I'm reading a lot about crime these days, partly because the general topic interests me, but also partly because I've read a bunch of Colin Wilson's books during the past few years. I mentioned my interest in Wilson's work in an earlier post, and I hope to post about his ideas about crime in the near future. My own work has been taking up a lot of my attention, and so recently I haven't had much free time for blogging about my reading.

But I just finished Robert D. Hare's Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, and I thought that I should say something about it. It's a fascinating book, and certainly one that is relevant to criminology. After all, many criminals have psychopathic personalities. Consequently, some rudimentary knowledge of Hare's work might come in handy to anyone interested in crime, be it fictional or non-fictional.

Below you'll find two images: one of the book's cover, another of Hare's list of the ten key symptoms of psychopathy.

I have to admit that I was struck by how restrictively Hare formulates his concept of psychopathy. His checklist seems, at least to me, to epitomize confidence tricksters and unscrupulous glad-handing businessmen. Prior to reading his book, I assumed that lack of remorse and lack of empathy were the two salient features of psychopathy. Many people I would have characterizedin my casual way as someone who has not been trained in psychologyas psychopaths don't really meet Hare's more stringent criteria.

On page 175 Hare writes of psychopaths as leading "lives of callous self-gratification." I'm not sure that I've ever known someone who could be described in this manner, although I've known self-absorbed people who often acted in a callous fashion. Maybe that's the same thing under a different description. But there are self-absorbed people who can be brought to think and care about the consequences of their actions. It's just that they have to be pushed by outside influences to do so. Psychopaths, as Hare diagnoses them, just don't care, although they're often good at pretending that they do.

When I taught at the University of Pennsylvania, I met a few business students who almost certainly were the unscrupulous glad-handing type, but I never got to see them in their full glory in the business world. But they have to come from somewhere, and I'm sure that Wharton graduates its share of them. How else can you explain the financial crisis of 2008?

When I was in academia, I met many people who obviously possessed several of the traits on Hare's list. I guess, though, that their lack of imagination, their dogmatic certainty that they and they alone were in possession of the truth, and their indifference to the welfare of other peopleall of which taken together often produced behavior that seemed psychopathic to mewere what you should expect from highly introverted people whose scholarly training has convinced them that they belong to a special elite. But according to Hare's criteria, they shouldn't be classified as psychopaths. These people, whatever their faults, I would never have characterized as glib or impulsive. Some were certainly egocentric and grandiose, and obviously had shallow emotional lives, but they typically had tight control over themselves.

You might say that their personal rigidity was intellectual and emotional. They easily excluded other people from their moral purview, and probably did so because they did not regard others outside of their elite groupings as worthy of respect and decent treatment. Hence their abominable behavior. That seems psychopathic to me, but Hare's research indicates otherwise. I guess that for Hare it's just a rather involved form of learned callousness (perhaps grounded on a natural shortage of sympathy and empathy) that doesn't go all the way down to the roots of their personalities as psychopathy does with psychopaths.

Well, of course, I'm not in a position to settle this debate. I'm glad that I read Hare's book, and I recommend it to your attention. I'll take it as my starting point for future reading on the topic of psychopathy.

December 12, 2004

I've been wondering for years when someone would get around to this: testing for psychopathic behavior in corporate executives. Well, Michael Steinberger tells us that it's finally happening. Steinberger has a short piece on this subject in the The New York Times.

Here's about two-thirds of the entire article:

Ever wonder what leads a lavishly compensated C.E.O. to cheat, steal and lie? Perhaps he's a psychopath, and now there is a test, the B-Scan 360, that can help make that determination. The B-Scan was conceived by Paul Babiak, an industrial psychologist, and Robert Hare, the creator of the standard tool for diagnosing psychopathic features in prison inmates. The B-Scan is the first formalized attempt to uncover similar tendencies in captains of industry, and it speaks to a growing suspicion that psychopaths may be especially adept at scaling the corporate ladder.

Indeed, Babiak and Hare could not have chosen a more propitious moment to roll out the B-Scan, which is now in the trial stage. The recent rash of damaging corporate scandals—combined with legislation making boards far more liable for executive malfeasance—has given companies good reason to screen current employees more rigorously.

According to Babiak and Hare, white-collar psychopaths are not apt to become serial rapists or murderers. Rather, they are prone to being 'subcriminal' psychopaths: smooth-talking, energetic individuals who easily charm their way into jobs and promotions but who are also exceedingly manipulative, narcissistic and ruthless. The purpose of the B-Scan is to smoke out these "snakes in suits."

[. . .]

[Babiak and Hare] point out that the frenzied nature of modern business—the constant downsizing, the relentless merging and acquiring—provides a very fertile environment for havoc-wreaking psychopaths, who thrive on chaos and risk-taking. As Hare put it in one interview, "If I couldn't study psychopaths in prison, I would go down to the Stock Exchange."